Mother of pearl question

Rennie Heuer

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I’m thinking of using mother of pearl in an inlay. Spec., the granulated kind that in poured onto a recess and the saturated with CA and then sanded flush. It is my thought that, once set and sanded flush, the inlay would be impervious to dyes and stains.

I know there must be some here that use this material. Am I correct to assume it will not be effected by the dye or stain once set?
 
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I dunno about the process that you mention, but I have been with resins lately. The metallic colors in resin seem to be a similar process. I can do a quickie test on that stain test with a resin inlay. I have three plaques "HOPE - LOVE - FAITH" in Pine - that I can stain, and dye to see the results. Or I can do a test on hardwood. I will be staining some kitchen cabinets soon and a few smaller pieces as well. While I am set up - a quick test added in would be easy to do.

What is your time frame?
 
I dunno about the process that you mention, but I have been with resins lately. The metallic colors in resin seem to be a similar process. I can do a quickie test on that stain test with a resin inlay. I have three plaques "HOPE - LOVE - FAITH" in Pine - that I can stain, and dye to see the results. Or I can do a test on hardwood. I will be staining some kitchen cabinets soon and a few smaller pieces as well. While I am set up - a quick test added in would be easy to do.

What is your time frame?
Cool. End of the week?
 
Hmmm...

I thought you guitar guys would have weighed in on this by now.
Me too. I don't do any luthier work but worked at a place that had one. People loved bringing their instruments in because he practically "auto detailed" every instrument he worked on even if it was just a nut replacement. For major body work and necks he used some form of lacquer and then polished it out with liquid abrasives. On these the coloration was all done prior to adding the MoP and top coats so not much help on finishes bleeding into MoP. Come on guitar guys. Help the man out ;-)
 
Spent some time reading on the reverse out of curiousity and I'm pretty confident that actual solid mother of pearl wouldn't be a problem (trying to dye it looks really hard). BUT I have less confidence on the granulated (does that offer some side intrusion options along the grain? I don't think so.. but maybe.. ) and the CCA possibly having the opportunity for porosity.

If I was betting I'd say you were fine, but maybe do a small spot filled hole and test with your desired/proposed finishing regime just to make sure.
 
I have a couple of tests in the works.

Can you elaborate a little on what you are thinking of doing?
My plan is to inlay a 1/8" band in a table top - see picture - of granulated mother of pearl product. The finish process requires two applications of aniline dye (in alcohol) and one application of an oil based stain followed by several applications of an oil based varnish. All of the finishing steps will take place after the installation and leveling of the inlay. Will this product resist the dyes and stain well enough to allow it to be installed prior to coloring the wood?
Full view open.jpg
 
I did do a test on a resin inlay. The inlay looked beautiful before I stained it. After staining it definitely got brown from the stain, does not look good anymore.

I used General Finishes Warm Cherry stain.
I would expect dye to be worst.

As far as I am concerned, I cannot apply stain on top of a resin inlay.

So CA is a different material and real MoP is different than the resin coloring.

I do not have high expectations of success on your project.
You KNOW - I can be wrong.

Make sure you do a test before you do the actual.
 
I did do a test on a resin inlay

Twenty questions :D

Out of curiosity what resin did you use? And was that their oil or water based stain? Also how fine did you polish the epoxy before staining?

Epoxy cures to a fairly impermeable plastic for the most part, but there's also a lot of variation between epoxies.. So I'm fairly interested in how the stain was taken up.

I could see oil getting into a plastic maybe more than water? Or if the epoxy had micro-grooves (not highly polished) those could also be reservoirs for stain particles. Small voids seems like maybe a significant risk for Rennie's process as well, I've had some trouble getting perfectly void free CCA fills around things like crushed stone or metal shavings in turnings - probably not using an ideal CCA.. but have had to sand and re-fill some.. maybe the pen turning folks have suggestions there?

It might be interesting to take some fine (IDK.. like 600 grit? 1200 grit?) sandpaper and see if the brown will polish out of the epoxy (or how deep it went in anyway)?
 
Twenty questions :D

Out of curiosity what resin did you use? And was that their oil or water based stain? Also how fine did you polish the epoxy before staining?
I used Total Boat Table Top epoxy resin.
I sanded with 350 grit
Epoxy cures to a fairly impermeable plastic for the most part, but there's also a lot of variation between epoxies.. So I'm fairly interested in how the stain was taken up.
Could be a good point - I epoxied yesterday and stained it today. Maybe not enough cure time

I could see oil getting into a plastic maybe more than water? Or if the epoxy had micro-grooves (not highly polished) those could also be reservoirs for stain particles. Small voids seems like maybe a significant risk for Rennie's process as well, I've had some trouble getting perfectly void free CCA fills around things like crushed stone or metal shavings in turnings - probably not using an ideal CCA.. but have had to sand and re-fill some.. maybe the pen turning folks have suggestions there?

It might be interesting to take some fine (IDK.. like 600 grit? 1200 grit?) sandpaper and see if the brown will polish out of the epoxy (or how deep it went in anyway)?

I can still expand the test.
I am pretty new to resins.
There is no sense that I think I know what I am doing.
My inlay is quite deep - 1/4 inch or so.
I can run it through the drum sander and get it down to clean new resin.

I will give it a few days to cure a bit better then clean it up.
 
I posted a similar question in a FB group for A&C furniture. One person suggested the MoP might be too flashy for the period piece. He suggested either pewter or copper. I've located some square copper wire wide enough for my needs and am considering it. Pewter seems very hard to find.
 
Pewter seems very hard to find.
A bit all over the place on this post but maybe it'll be useful in some way or not :D

You can actually pour pewter into wood. R97 melts at around 500F which some woods will scorch a smidge at that temperature and others.. less so (yaah more experiments hah) I think you'd get a light scorch line in cherry but haven't ever tried to pour anything that long. When pouring you want to key it into the sides a bit (small dovetails or just tag in some small angled holes in the side of the rabbet every few inches is pretty easy). You can minimize effects of over pour with a 2 or 3 layers of painters tape, lightly dampening the wood ahead of time minimizes the scorching some as well. It files back nicely (and I think.. with a sharp block plane you could carefully shave it..).

I've bought lead free pewter, babbit, and a few other things from Rotometals they might not be always the cheapest but they're close and pretty easy to deal with.

The other option for square wire might be nickle silver (or "german silver") which is a nickle alloy (my usual place apparently only has it in 14g which might be small? https://www.riogrande.com/product/n...-spool-14-ga.-dead-soft/131520GP/?code=131520 but other places have it in other guages) - you can get 10g off of AMZ apparently https://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Silver-Wire-752-5FT-Craft/dp/B01IUJ4PTO

You could also just jump to sterling silver :D Which at $30/oz isn't ..quite.. as insane as it might seem (10' of 12g is "only" $100.. plus shipping).


If you need to solder it for longer pieces the Argentium variant (it's still a 925 sterling but has some anti-corrosion properties and resists firescale better) is a LOT easier to deal with for beginners (at least I found it so, my "regular" sterling experiments were.. less salubrious).

(all square wire @ riogrande https://www.riogrande.com/product/metals/wire--rod/?Form=Wire&Shape=Square)

Side note for the copper or nickle silver dead soft will be easier to work to shape especially at the 10-11 gauge you're looking at, you can likely get away with half soft though because it's not a super sharp curve and half might wear slightly better. If you find it to soft some light hammering with a soft rawhide or plastic mallet on a wooden block will jiggle it into a harder form without significant deforming.
 
I've seen a couple of references in this thread for "CCA", but I've not seen the acronym before. What is it?

And as an aside, a good buddy of mine (and fellow guitar slinger) has worked at Rio Grande (formerly Rio Grande Jeweler's Supply) for years.
 
I've seen a couple of references in this thread for "CCA", but I've not seen the acronym before. What is it?

And as an aside, a good buddy of mine (and fellow guitar slinger) has worked at Rio Grande (formerly Rio Grande Jeweler's Supply) for years.
:rofl: :rofl:
Guess I started that. Should be CA - superglue.
 
Thanks to everyone for the great input. I'm leaning towards the copper as it seems to be the easiest and there is less chance of burning my shop to the ground. :rofl:

I found a source on Etsy that has square 8 gauge (1/8") copper wire. They charge by the foot but will cut to length for me. I have a spiral 1/8" bit so will attempt to use the trammel to cut the grooves rather than use a template like I did on the coffee table. I'll sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow.
 
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